Amanda – Your transformation is truly astounding! I have been there with the stalls (I’ve finally started losing some after about a 9 month “hiatus”) so just keep doing what you’re doing and it will fall into place. In any case, you should feel very proud of yourself. You look beautiful.
You look fantastic! What a motivation! Your photo collage is a great idea....really puts things into perspective. Maybe I should start taking pics of myself so I can do the same.
What kind of exercises are you doing? Your arms are amazing!
The one thing I wish is that I had taken MORE pictures and measurements. The more ways to keep track of your progress, the better. When I got down, I made the collage to remind myself of how far I've come.
In terms of the arm exercises, I do a total body strength workout twice a week. The best definition improvements happened not using free weights, but using resistance bands. Recently, I've done the following (with my resistance band for the arm exercises) twice a week.
Exercise / Reps per Set / # Sets
Bicep Supersets (hammer curls and regular bicep curls) / 10 per exercise / 4
Tricep Overheads / 15 / 4
Rear Delt Flies / 15 / 4
Front Lateral Raises / 12 / 4
Side Shoulder Raises / 12 / 4
Resisted Squats / 12 / 4
or
Wall Squats / 45 sec. / 4
Overhead Shoulder Presses / 15 / 4
Lunges / 10xside / 4
...
plus ab exercises (normally I do bicycle crunches, leg lift thingies, and crunches with a ball under my knees...sort of hard to describe - in 4 sets of 20).
That takes me a teensy bit over an hour twice a week. You know, I -never- saw the muscle definition until I started with the bands. I don't know if my BF% just dropped to a level where I could see it, or if the bands made a serious difference.
Thank you! It is so weird to think that I am, essentially, an "after". Not quite there, but definitely getting there. My eyes have not caught up quite yet.
You ARE an AFTER, girl!! The last pounds are the worst...I ought to know - I've been farting around with the last 15 pounds for like a year and a half now. But you have really nice muscle definition going on.
Wow, you look amazing. You can tell from the wedding pictures how much better you feel about your new weight. I hear that the last few pounds are the hardest, but you have accomplished so much already I'm certain you will do it!
